


Fencing and Weaving

by StrawberryAeris



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games), Hollow Knight Silksong (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Fencing, Fun, Play Fighting, Sewing, Teaching, Trying New Activities, Weaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryAeris/pseuds/StrawberryAeris
Summary: Hornet and Lace try out each other's favorite activities which they aren't to fond of or don't know how to do.
Relationships: Hornet/Lace (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	1. Fencing

“Here it is!” Lace said with joy, arms wide open.

A fencing training room Lace was trained in. Quite a large room, Hornet thought, makes sense. It was very dim due to the lights outside going dim and they were very little platforms in the room. “Hm.” she hummed.

“Come get in, get in.” Lace commanded softly. She was thrilled and filled with excitement to fence with Hornet. Though, Hornet isn’t too fond of the activity. She really doesn’t see why fencers would fight for no real reason. Fighting in her viewpoint was a serious thing, and should be used for protection, self defense, and hunting. But she knew Lace really enjoyed it, so she decided to give it a shot.

Hornet looked over to the side to see helmets hanging on racks with swords besides them. “Uh...Shouldn’t we wear any armor for this? There’s equipment over here.” She questioned.

“I have my own,” Lace answered. “Though, I don’t usually wear it all the time when I’m practicing alone. If you want to wear any armor over there, you can.”

She didn’t, though. She has fought many foes before without protection. Wearing armor just for ‘practice’ would be rather pointless. “Though, if I were you, I wouldn’t use your needle for this.” Lace noted, putting down her pack with her armor inside.

“Why not?” Hornet asked.

“Your needle is a little too...I guess powerful for this. I suggest using any of the swords over there just so your weapon doesn’t do anything funny. Don’t worry, though, I’m not using my pin, either.” Lace explained.

Hornet let out a soft huff and placed her needle against the wall. She went over to see what sword was the closest to her needle while Lace was putting on her armor. Hornet chose a Sabre sword, and she examined the blade. “God this thing is thin.” She whispered to herself.

“Hornet!” Lace called.

“Hm?”

She turned to see that Lace was dressed in gilded gold, yet light armor. She wore fancy, swirly cups for the horns of her hat, a chestplate and shoulder pads, gloves, and boots.

“Ta-da!” Lace said as she did a little twirl. “What do you think? Safe enough?”

Hornet always thought Lace looked gorgeous in gold. It really made her stand out and it suited her, too. It was one of Lace’s favorite colors as well. “Hmph, cute.” She answered with a small smirk. Lace let out a giggle before going over to the swords to grab one of them. She chose the Epee, her favorite. “Ready?” she asked. “Yeah.” Hornet answered.

They went over to one of the platforms and stood side by side. “I’m sure you’re aware of some of the bare basics of fencing, no?” Lace questioned. “I think so?” Hornet answered, but not so sure about it.

“You know, like lunging, parrying, riposteing, simple stuff,”

“Oh, yeah yeah.”

“Do you know how to coupe?”

“Coupe?”

Lace took a deep breath, now seeing where she can start. “Ok, so,” she said as she walked over to face Hornet. “The coupe, which is also called the cut-over, is a simple, quick movement where you lift your point above your opponent’s point so that your weapon arm can extend to threaten your opponent.” she explained. “So, uh… hold your blade up for me.”

Hornet held up her blade, but not really any position or anything. Lace backed up so she could raise hers. “So, if I were to see an opposite side, I would cut over like this,” Lace then hovered her blade to the other side of Hornet’s. “And I would thrust my blade at my opponent like this.” She then lightly thrusted the point of her sword towards Hornet’s chest. She pulled back, “That’s pretty much it, actually. Just cut over, beat, and thrust.”

“Ooh ok,” Hornet responded while nodding. “Are you familiar with that move or is it new to you?” Lace asked her.

“It’s new,” Hornet answered. “It looks rather simple compared to the things I have been taught before.” She kept imitating a cut-over as if there was a blade in front of her as she spoke.

“Why not give it a go on me, hm?” Lace suggested while positioning herself and raising her blade. Hornet nodded and tried to copy Lace’s stance.

She performed another cut-over, lightly tapped Lace’s blade with hers, and thrusted it towards Lace’s chestplate. “Like that?” She spoke.

“Yeah, like that!” Lace answered. “Can you perform another for me?”

“Sure,” Hornet said softly. But before she could even end her cut-over, Lace then tried to block her thrust, leading their swords to push and pull against each other and dragging Hornet a little closer to Lace. Their swords freed themselves, but Hornet was still, to then look up at Lace, who then grinned and giggled.

“Eh-What was that for?! What move was that?!” Hornet stuttered. Lace continued to giggle.

“I don’t know! I just thought you’d do something you knew how to do.”

Hornet brought herself back up to then try and hack at Lace with her sword, but Lace blocked her attack. Hornet pushed herself against her sword, which as well pushed and pinned Lace into the wall.

“Is this something?” Hornet said, yet not 100% sure as to where she was going with this.

Lace smirked, “You’re a fast learner.”

“How so?”

“I never seen you do something like this before.”

She wasn’t wrong. Hornet barely pinned anyone down and was up close in their face. Odd, she thought to herself. She hummed, allowing Lace to take an advantage to push her off. Lace went around her and raise her blade at her once more.

“Shall we continue or do you have more tricks up your sleeve?” Lace said with a smirk.

Hornet giggled softly, also raising her blade. “Guess we’ll have to find out.”

Lace grinned wider, knowing the fun that was coming their way.


	2. Weaving

Hornet and Lace wandered through the dark corridors of Deepnest. The atmosphere was rather warm and dark, but Lace still rubbed her arms, not used to such a feel.

“You must really enjoy the darkness, huh?” Lace spoke.

“Yeah,” Hornet replied, “All of us Weavers do. Or at least most of us do. It’s comforting.”

Lace nodded. “I don’t usually come far in here, though. It just brings me...thoughts,” Hornet added. After a moment, she turned her head to face Lace, “You doing alright back there?”

“Oh yes,” Lace answered, “I-”

She was cut off by Hornet stopping. “Oh Lace! Your hip!” Hornet noted. Lace looked over at her side, seeing that Hornet noticed a large tear followed by other smaller tears on her suit. The large tear revealed a scar mark Lace recently received from a creature while traveling to Deepnest.

“Oh,” Lace said as she brought her arm down to block it from view. “It’s...that’s nothing. I’ll get it a new suit at some point, I swear.”

“Why? Can you just sew it back up or something?” Hornet questioned.

“I-...no. I was told that if my uniform was ever tattered or anything, I would have had to replace it.” Lace explained.

Dumb idea, Hornet thought to herself. She can understand that some fabrics and such are very different from each other and don’t work the same way as others, but why would anyone just waste a perfectly good piece of clothing to only replace it because it had  _ one  _ tear in it?

She then thought of a question to ask, “Do you know how to sew?”

Lace glanced at her side again before facing Hornet again. “...no.”

“I can show you. Do you want me to show you how to?”

Lace pondered a bit, until Hornet spoke, “Come, we’re almost to the den. I can show you when we get there.”

“O-Ok,” Lace said softly. Lace continued to follow Hornet into the Distant Village and into the Beast’s Den. Hornet peeped her head in to scan the room. There was nothing but a bench, a table, and a couple of masks and cloaks on the ground.

“No one’s here. Come in,” Hornet said. Lace followed suit inside, but stopped by the entrance to examine the room. So many cobwebs, she thought. She quickly took notice at Hornet sitting by the bench, patting the ground indicating for Lace to come and sit with her. Lace obliged, though she’d rather sit on the bench more than anything. She then sat beside her.

Hornet crawled over to her tool kit that was sitting on the bench to take out some small needles and thread out of it before sitting back down with Lace. She fell silent for a bit.

“Is there something wrong, little spider?” Lace spoke.

“Uh...it-it’ll be a little difficult to fix your suit if you’re wearing it,” Hornet responded softly.

Lace’s eyes widen a little. “Do...d-do I have to-?”

“Yeah.”

Lace’s face lit up a light pink and looked around herself. “I um...I don’t have any spare clothes.”

“Do you wanna wear my cloak? I’ll let you wear it for the moment. Or-oh there’s cloaks over there! They might be dirty, but you can wear one of those if you want!” Hornet asked, pointing to the cloaks from afar.

Lace got up to check out the cloaks first before she could really answer. Some of them were a little dirty and dusty, but Lace saw one that looked clean enough for her to wrap herself in.

“You can keep yours on, I’ll just wear this one,” she confirmed. “Just give me a minute.”

“Ok,” Hornet replied. Lace hooked the cloak onto her shoulder and started to get changed. Hornet looked at the tools on the ground and her hands as she heard Lace start to unzip her suit. Silence filled the room for a quick moment.

“...Hornet, can I have some of your silk for this scar, please?”

Hornet quickly looked back up, “Oh right, yeah!”

She quickly crawled over to the bench to fetch her bobbin filled with silk. “Catch!” she said as she tossed it to Lace. Luckfully enough Lace caught it.

Hornet continued to wait for Lace to finish up. She bit one of her claws before deciding to set up her sewing needle by putting a long strand of white thread through its hole. Hornet glanced back up to see Lace coming back towards her in the cloak of a distant villager and her suit in hand. The cloak was a little big for her, but was still able to fit if she kept most of it on her shoulders. Lace then sat beside Hornet again and handed her the suit.

“Ready?” Hornet asked.

“Yeah.”

Hornet took a breath and fiddled with Lace’s suit till she could flip inside-out. “Just a quick tip: if you’re going to sew something back up such as a hole in a piece of clothing, it’s best to flip it inside-out because that’s where most of the thread work will be. And we want to hide that.” she explained.

“Mmhm.” Lace hummed.

Hornet scooched closer to Lace so she could show her the sewing process she was about to perform.

“So...when you’re sewing up a hole with a needle and thread: You would take your needle and thread and start off with a back-stitch. Which means, you would insert the needle into the fabric and pull it out, but not all the way though. You see this hoop that I left here? You would put your needle through it, pull, and it’ll lock the thread in without having to create a knot.”

Lace nodded as Hornet spoke and sewed. “So, you would do this and continue all throughout the hole. You create these loops by inserting the needle into the fabric on one side, and then go across to the other. So, over and up, over and up,” Hornet continued as she performed these stitches.

“Ah,” Lace spoke.

“Wanna try?” Hornet asked as she held up her work to Lace. 

“Oh uh...sure,” she answered. She took her suit and the needle from Hornet and attempted to make a back-stitch.

“Don’t poke yourself,” Hornet noted.

“I know.”

Lace then tried to make a stitch like what Hornet made. “Like that?” she questioned.

“Yep. But it’s a little too far from the others. You don’t want your stitches too far from each other ‘cause it won’t really hold together very well and the hole will start to open again,” Hornet explained.

“Oh...oops,” Lace said softly.

“It’s ok, if you make a mistake, you can just pull the needle back out from where you inserted it,” Hornet said as she undid Lace’s previous stitch. She handed the needle back to Lace so she could retry. Lace attempted to do the stitch again, but closer to the others this time. She then showed Hornet her stitch.

“There you go,” Hornet said lightly. “Do you want me to finish this part for you or do you think you got it?”

Lace hesitated, “I think I got it.”

“Ok. While you do that, I’ll uh...oh,” Hornet skittered to the bench to grab some more tools and back to start her own little project.

Once Lace finished her back-stitching, she perked her head up, “Um...what do I do now?”

“D’you finish?”

“Yes.”

Hornet placed her project on the ground and scooched closer to Lace again to see her work. “Oh nice. So now what you do is weave it in. So, you would thread your needle the same way as we started before, and lift the thread up and go under. And just continue your way throughout the hole. So just up and over, up and over.”

“Oh ok,” Lace said.

“Take your time, though. You don’t wanna insert through the strands ‘cause it won’t look as good if you do.”

Lace nodded. “Oh and once you’re done with that, your last stitch would be that back-stitch again, and cut off the needle and excess thread off and you’ll be done.” Hornet added.

“Ok, so like this?” Lace said as she started to weave.

“Yep, like that!”

“Ok.”

Lace proceeded to her weaving while Hornet picked up her project and sat next to her to work on her project.

“Interesting how you know this kind of stuff,” Lace said.

“Well, it’s just some simple stuff to know, it’s not entirely surprising,” Hornet replied.

“Are you self-taught?”

“Hm?”

“Are you self-taught?” Lace repeated.

Hornet shrugged, “I guess? When I was a child, my mother did teach me some sewing techniques beforehand. Afterwards, I did teach myself how to make weapons and such with some weaving being involved.”

“I see,” Lace replied.

“It just takes practice, is all,” Hornet said.

Lace hummed, “Also...thank you for teaching me something simple like this.”

Hornet glanced at her and paused for a bit.

“You...You’re welcome.”

Hornet and Lace then proceeded with their sewing projects and chatted as they worked in the bottom of Beast’s Den.


End file.
